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NACDL News: Maryland Legislature Votes To Repeal the Death Penalty

On March 15, 2013, the state of Maryland moved one step closer to abolishing the death penalty. The House of Delegates — by a margin of 82 to 56 — voted to repeal the death penalty in Maryland. Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has made the legislation one of his top priorities, is expected to sign the bill into law in April. The Maryland Senate passed the bill on March 6.

NACDL President Steven D. Benjamin said: “NACDL has been an outspoken critic of the death penalty system, which countless studies have shown to be arbitrary, discriminatory, and fraught with error. Because we believe that no amount of tinkering will save the death penalty from its inherent flaws, NACDL supports abolition. To witness yet another state legislature recognize these realities is extremely gratifying.”

Since reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States, 141 individuals sentenced to death have been exonerated. Among them is Kirk Bloodsworth, a former marine and Maryland death row inmate who in

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